Final Trailer

Here is the final trailer for my racing level.

Space Research

For programming class we chose to go with the arcade game Space Invaders. 

Game Features:

• Player Locomotion- Left to right
• Game Camera- Static, top down
• Player Health and Respawn System- Player has three lives and when killed player respawns on the left side of the screen.
• Wall Collision- Collision on the left and right sides of the screen.
• Enemy Behavior- Enemies move from left to right as a group, when they reach one side of the screen, they will drop down one row. They randomly shoot projectiles. 
• Level Hazards- Enemies attacking you are the main hazards. 
• HUD- Gamplay screen is the player's score and their lives. Ending screen is "game over" and "play again?"

Asset List:

• Materials and Textures- Alphas of the player and the four different enemies. 
• Sound FX- Laser sounds, two different explosions, background music.
• Particle Effects- Enemy explosion, player explosion, shooting particle.
• Animations- Animations of the three different enemies and the explosions.

UE4 Game Template: 2D Side-Scroller

It would be the best choice for our project code base because it is close to the camera. It gives us the orthographic view that we need. 

Potential Challenges- Making the AI scroll from side to side and dropping down.

Attract Trailer Research

For our next assignment we had to go find an attract trailer for a game to get an idea as to how we can apply it to our racing levels. I chose to find one for Forza Horizon 2. I liked this one because it had some really nice shots of both the scenery and the cars.

HUD Research

For class we had to go out and find some examples of HUD's that would fit the style of our cars. Since my car is a 57' Bel air, I figured I would go for a more old style vintage HUD. One good example I found was in the game Mafia II. I figured that if I went with something like that, I could replace the gas gauge with something else similar to the setup we have in the Vehicle Game.



I also looked up what the speedometer actually looks like in a Bel Air.

Here is a mock layout I made of what it might look like.

Particles

For my racing level I created a money trail that flows out the back of my car as it drives. I also created a smoke particle effect that you can see on top of one of the buildings.

Particle Research

For our programming class we were to look into how to create our own particle effect that would fit into our race track levels. For my effect I chose to look into creating a money trail that comes from the side of my car as it drives. My level starts just after a bank robbery has taken place. The idea is that the player just got the money, got in the car, and is now on the run from the cops.

Here is a tutorial video on creating a Mesh Emitter which put me on the right path to creating the particle effect. I did the first few steps, then did some of my own experimentation.

This picture is very exaggerated but the money coming out the back of the car is somewhere in the ball-field as to what what I'm going for.